Thread by @atomicthumbs

The US government, through the Department of Health and Human Services provided funding to the Southwest Research Institute to develop a shelf-stable, acid-free device to synthesize poppers, presumably for use in the Middle East
patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/f4/5b/b5/38830…

Patent also describes in detail two manual syntheses of alkyl nitrites, using DOWEX 50WX4-50 acidic cation exchange resin beads as a catalyst. The government caused the invention of a way to make poppers without using strong acid as a liquid-phase catalyst

probably of note in the first lower-yield synthesis was the "red-brown gas" that was evolved, signifying that the alkyl nitrite had undergone degradation into nitrogen dioxide and possibly nitric acid. I suspect that this is partially due to allowing it to warm to 20C.

I am not an organic chemist and have no organic chemistry experience, just basic knowledge. Alkyl nitrites degrade to toxic nitrogen species with exposure to water, oxygen, light, and heat; how can this synthesis be further improved?

This paper may be useful for further developments; amyl nitrite ampoules for pharmaceutical use must be stabilized against degradation or they will explode. Potassium carbonate is very good at reacting with the degradation products to reduce gas pressure sci-hub.se/https://online…